Former NFL Player: Anthem Protesters Didn’t Understand What They Were Doing

"Some guys wanted to get involved but didn't really understand the foundation and the history of why people were protesting."

By NTK Staff | 12.20.2017 @10:36am

Former NFL runningback Arian Foster said that a lot of NFL players wanted to participate in Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest, but didn’t understand why they were protesting. He made the remarks during a Barstool Sports interview on Wednesday.

Barstool Sports’ Dan Katz asked Foster if he thought there was pressure on him during his time in the NFL not to speak his mind about social issues.

“So, this whole Colin Kaepernick protest, right…I know a lot of guys that want to participate or wanted to participate,” said Foster, who retired from the NFL in 2016. “Some of them didn’t want to participate because they didn’t want to get involved in social affairs. They just wanted to play football and feed their families.”

“Some guys wanted to get involved but didn’t really understand the foundation and the history of why people were protesting, anyway, and didn’t want to face that backlash…and didn’t want to answer those questions,” Foster concluded. “They just wanted to do something because they felt something was going on in this country.”